(CNN) – It's almost possible to trace a straight line from the American tear down of Saddam Hussein, to the struggle to rebuild a destroyed nation, to the U.S. armed forces' exit from the country, to now: an Iraq possibly devolving into a Sunni-Shia civil war.

"What the Americans left behind was an Iraqi state that was not able to stand on its own. What we built is now coming apart. This is the real legacy of america's war in Iraq," journalist Dexter Filkins wrote in this week's issue of The New Yorker.

Check out the video above for our interview with Filkins, who has been covering Iraq since the United States first started Operation Iraqi Freedom.

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